GerryP.
A friend read Manchester’s “The Last Lion” and said that one conclusion was that the aristos were never all that restrained, although they played along publicly.
On the other hand, it became necessary for the aristos to sell their titles–which is to say accept the thrusting, Victorian, upper-middle class Industrial Revolution fortunes marrying into the stratosphere–to survive.
I have some friends and family who, with a little luck, might include a couple of tables of public school teachers. One, remarking of her daughter’s daughter as a toddler, “I will bet Jen sends Gracie to a Christian school.” Happened, too, and the cause was secondarily the religious issue and primarily the ability to avoid the sordid, fetid aspects of society which the public school teachers must accept, or deal with every day.
The family in question now has three kids, two in Christian school and the third will follow.
The three young mothers in the family, all trained as teachers, have quit working in public schools and instead do private tutoring following referrals from Christian schools.
Interesting bunch. When my granddaughter was nine months old, I kidded my DIL that she and my son were calculating which sports the little girl would be all-conference in. She gave me a look. “All conference. As a freshman, maybe.”
All jocks, all the women are tall and beautiful and the men are huge and impressive and work their asses off. All are devout churchgoers.
I sometimes think of Gordon Dickson.
But, good catch. I hadn’t been thinking of the twentieth century.